Black51

If youre planning on using a 944 as a D, my bet would be the roads would kill your car and you back. Roads are bad enough in several first world countries as it is...

seattle951

Nigeria was an interesting assignment. There certainly was a lot of corruption but there was also a lot of legitimate business as well. Many of the small businesses are run by expat Lebanese and most manufacturing was dominated by Indian families that had been there for generations. The majority of the oil companies had compounds for their expat employees but several multinational firms had their employees living in better areas of town without compounds. Most oil company employees were Nigerian and they typically had Petroleum Engineering degrees from universities in Texas. These employees are well paid and lived on the local economy. I also encountered a number of Harvard MBAs that returned to Nigeria to run construction, TELCOM, banking or other companies.

I would not necessarily link wealth to "alternative" means of income. There are plenty of legitimate business people in Nigeria with high incomes that enjoy their high end cars. Of course, there are also huge numbers of super poor people and many rich criminals living alongside the upper class. I have lived and worked in many countries and Nigeria was probably the most interesting.

seattle951

My colleagues that have already completed similar assignments in Bogota have not mentioned issues with the roads. However, they usually used a shuttle to get to work. Their personally owned cars were primarily used for running errands.

A 944 is not a very expensive car. If the roads eat it up, I will sell it locally. I have never had an issue selling my cars overseas.

seattle951

Possibly, but my employer has recommended against any supercharged or turbocharged cars because of the gasoline. To me, this means that the octane is significantly less than what we are used to.

Tom M'Guinn

At 8600 feet, the air has about 75% the amount of oxygen as compared to sea level --10.9 psi compared to 14.7. That creates proportionally lower cylinder pressures and reduces the propensity for the motor to knock. My guess is they know exactly what they're doing there in Bogota. 85 octane at that altitude probably does just fine for most cars (as long as they stay up there in the thin air). You can reset the FQS as folks suggested, and check to make sure your altitude sensor is connected and working. It is tucked up behind and to the right behind the glove box, and is the yellow zinc canister about the size of a baseball. You might also install a manual boost controller and knock counter ($100 all in) before you head down there, so you can see if it is knocking when you get there and, if so, just turn down the boost a tad. I'd suspect you'll do just fine with some boost, as long as everything else is working correctly. Seems unnecessary to completely eliminate all boost, but with a controller you can turn it down as needed. If you wanted to stay on the performance train down there, consider a water/meth injection system (e.g., aquamist). Water is available everywhere, and should allow 85 octane easily outperform the typical 91 unleaded available on the west coast. (Might want to change your fuel filter before you go too...) Buena Suerte!

Reimu

I was under the impression that ethanol was popular in South America

I'm sure there has to be place to find E85 nearby

racerxrick

Bogata will be a nice assignment....for the women alone!!!!!!!!!!!

Black51

So does that mean guys in Denver can run 87 octane no problem then?...

Tom M'Guinn

Don't get me wrong, I'd get the highest octane available in Denver or anywhere else. I was just saying that 85 octane at 8600 feet may not be as bad as it sounds -- he may not need to eliminate all boost -- and might be manageable with a knock counter, boost controller and FQS settings. I was reacting to the idea of pre-emptively eliminating all boost.

Rogue_Ant

Turbo cars will still want the highest octane possible, as we are octane/knock limited on gasoline.

NA cars can generally get away with less octane.

Black51

Exactly. So maybe he would be better off driving an S2.

Rogue_Ant

Yeah - it would be much more driveable...

seattle951

An S2 requires premium fuel. How would a 1987 Porsche 924S be in Bogota? The 1987 924S has lower compression than a 944 for the same year and runs on regular. Porsche purposely dropped 10 hp so that the 924S would not be faster (less weight and drag).

There is a super clean 924S for sale in PA with 35k original miles for sale for $6k. I am considering make a trip to PA to check it out. Any thoughts about original timing belts, head gaskets and oil cooler seals on a 25 year old car? I am guessing that I would want to replace them immediately even though the car is low miles.

Black51

I thought it was just discussed that with lower cylinder pressure at altitude, 85 octane would be ok... it mustve been a dream

I believe brazil has e-100, and probably many other blends of ethanol, but im not sure about columbia. FWIW, I was in central america last year, and didnt notice e-85 anywhere.

Rogue_Ant

At 8000+ feet, there is nearly 4psi less atmosphere (10.7psi vs 14.7psi). Therefore the effective compression is significantly reduced - which also reduces the need for high octane.
In-fact, an 11:1 car at that altitude probably has similar cylinder pressures to an 8:1 car at sea-level.